Everyone knows that the BBC is sometimes biased.
asserted
BBC → know → ?
It would be childish to deny it.
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It → deny → it
Even its new director-general, Matt Brittin, suspects it isn’t impartial.
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it → suspect → ?
When he took over in May he said he wanted to build a ‘satnav around bias’, whatever that means exactly.
uncertain
that → take → whatever
A previous director-general, Mark Thompson, admitted in 2010 that the Corporation had historically suffered from a ‘massive Left-wing bias’.
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Corporation → admit → bias
Yet pundits, among whom I count myself, tend to make a mistake.
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I → count → mistake
We concentrate on the main news and documentary programmes, and complain when the Beeb oversteps the mark.
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Beeb → concentrate → mark
Because the organisation is wary of criticism – probably more so now that it has begun to shed licence payers at an alarming rate – its bosses try to keep a weather eye on excesses in its main output.
But there are huge swathes of coverage that usually go unexamined, where bias can be far more rampant than in Auntie’s most prominent programmes.
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bias → begin → programmes
is one such case, which I’ll come to later.
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I → come → which
Another example is BBC Bitesize, an educational website used in most state schools and accessed by almost 1.7 million pupils every week.
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example → use → pupils
The BBC's director-general, Matt Brittin, said he wanted to build a ‘satnav around bias’ when he took over
When I was at school, BBC Bitesize wasn’t even on the horizon, as it was launched in 1998.
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it → say → 1998
But younger readers and parents may have fond memories of a website that made learning a little more painless.
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learning → have → website
Somehow it has since been captured by the Left, as a brilliant exposé by yesterday’s Mail on Sunday showed.
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exposé → capture → Sunday
The website is promoting extreme Left-wing views on net zero, immigration and much else.
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website → promote → net
That self-righteous pest and activist Greta Thunberg is championed.
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pest → champion → ?
A video asks pupils if they skipped school to join her well-publicised protests against climate change.
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they → ask → change
Black marks for those who didn’t!
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who → do → those
Other progressive causes such as the 1980s campaign group Lesbians And Gays Support The Miners and Black Lives Matter receive an approving pat on the back.
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Lesbians → support → back
The Mail on Sunday, by the way, reviewed material aimed at secondary school pupils aged 11 to 14.
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Mail → review → pupils
It is perhaps on the subject of immigration that BBC Bitesize goes into full Left-wing mode, embracing values barely distinguishable from those of the Socialist Workers Party.
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Bitesize → go → Party
In one mind-boggling game called Increasing Immigration, pupils are encouraged to make decisions aimed at boosting the number of incomers.
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pupils → boggle → incomers
Instructions to players state: ‘We don’t have enough people of working age to keep our society running smoothly.
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We → state → society
We should try to attract migrant workers and incorporate them into our economy.’
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We → try → economy
Actually, it may be unfair to attribute such views solely to the Socialist Workers Party as they seem also to reflect the position of successive governments.
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they → attribute → governments
According to the Centre for Social Justice think-tank, migrants have accounted for four in five of the net increase in British payroll jobs over the past decade.
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migrants → accord → decade
Pupils win points for suggesting that immigrants living here illegally should be granted an amnesty, and they lose points if they are politically incorrect enough to back deportation.
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they → win → deportation
A mind-boggling game on BBC Bitesize is called Increasing Immigration, and encourages students to make decisions aimed at boosting the number of incomers
Bitesize champions activist Greta Thunberg and even asks pupils if they skipped school to join her protests against climate change, says Stephen Glover
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Glover → boggle → change
Other progressive causes on the website include the Black Lives Matter movement and the 1980s campaign group Lesbians And Gays Support The Miners
And so it goes on.
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it → include → Miners
Elsewhere on the Bitesize website, geography pupils in Wales are informed that migrants pump a ‘staggering amount of money into the economy’.
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migrants → inform → economy
Let’s have more immigration then!
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’s → let → immigration
Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, famously said: ‘Give me a child until he is seven years old and I will give you the man.’
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I → say → man
This was his way of saying that the minds of young people can be moulded permanently.
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minds → say → people
Which is what the Beeb’s website is trying to do.
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website → try → what
BBC Bitesize is not bent on brainwashing the young in every way.
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Bitesize → bend → way
But why is Auntie involved to any degree in promoting hard-Left views?
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Auntie → involve → views
This is a very good example of a lot happening at the BBC (which employs more than 5,000 journalists) without the director-general or senior bosses willing it, still less being aware of it.
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general → happen → it
The folk who run the Corporation aren’t particularly Left-wing, though some of them are rather woke.
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some → run → them
It is the rank-and-file in less scrutinised parts of the organisation who sometimes, left alone or poorly supervised, push their own hard Left agenda with impunity.
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who → leave → impunity
Let’s face it: most of us don’t usually take much interest in that news service, though it’s funded by licence payers and taxpayers.
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it → face → payers
Yet it is shocking that those working for it appear to have breached the broadcaster’s impartiality rules, including by celebrating the brutal Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.
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those → work → October
…and 21 more, not listed.
The Aporia
